Tuesday, October 20, 2009

The All Things Painter Introduction to Portraiture webinar is this Friday, so there's a limited time left to sign up. If you are shooting photographic portraits of friends, family, or as a business—then this webinar is for you. Expressive photographic interpretation elevates a photograph to a unique hand-wrought artwork. This webinar will introduce you to the interpretive process by watching over the artist's shoulder as I transform a photographic portrait into a painted result. I'll explain the key concepts involved. as well as demonstrate various time-reducing shortcuts.

I've created hundreds of expressive interpretations for professional portrait studios around the country. In this webinar, I'll detail—from start-to-finish—my process of transforming a photographic portrait into an expressive painted artwork.

Whether you sign up for the webinar or not, you may be interested in a two-part column I wrote for AfterCapture magazine on the subject of expressive portrait interpretation. You can download these two articles as PDF files here:

A one-hour demonstration won't turn you into an expressive portrait master, but it will provide you with an organized basis for diving into this exciting and rewarding artform. In addition, we'll have a 10-minute Q&A following the demonstration. A video of the webinar will be available to attendees following the live presentation.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Artist Bob Nolin of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania painted this portrait as his first piece done with John's Watercolors. "I’ve just begun exploring what these brushes can do, but already I’m quite impressed."

Monday, October 12, 2009

This upcoming All Things Painter webinar will focus on Portraiture. I will spend the majority of the time demonstrating how to deal with the primary subject: the face. Skin, hair, lips, and eyes will be covered. I'll show how to utilize light and shadow to enhance the subject. This one-hour webinar will be on Friday, October 23, at 11AM PDT.

I've created hundreds of expressive interpretations for professional portrait studios around the country. In this webinar, I'll detail—from start-to-finish—my process of transforming a photographic portrait into an expressive painted artwork.

A one-hour demonstration won't turn you into an expressive portrait master, but it will provide you with an organized basis for diving into this exciting and rewarding artform. In addition, we'll have a 10-minute Q&A following the demonstration. A video of the webinar will be available to attendees following the live presentation.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Last week's free All Things Painter John's Watercolors webinar had 158 attendees and was a success based on the emails I've received. I've now got the webinar available as a downloadable Quicktime movies.

I've additionally got the Kaleidocolors portion of the webinar available as a separate Quicktime movie. The Painter Kaleidocolors template file and a PDF instruction chart are included in the ZIP file.

Note that Kaleidocolors is for Painter and will not work in other applications.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

As digital cameras and inkjet printers become ubiquitous, more and more Painter users want to create expressive portraits of friends and family. But where to start? For this 1-hour All Things Painter webinar, I'll provide an instructional demonstration that illustrates my approach to expressive portrait interpretation. This one-hour webinar will be on Friday, October 23, at 11AM PDT.

Over the past several years, I've created hundreds of expressive interpretations for professional portrait studios around the country. In this webinar, I'll detail—from start-to-finish—my process of transforming a photographic portrait into an expressive painted artwork.

A one-hour demonstration won't turn you into an expressive portrait master, but it will provide you with an organized basis for diving into this exciting and rewarding artform. In addition, we'll have a 10-minute Q&A following the demonstration. A video of the webinar will be available to attendees following the live presentation.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

During Friday's All Thinga Painter webinar, I explained how John's Watercolors' Gel Eraser brush was inadvertently save and distributed with a less-than-optimal setting. The Gel Eraser—as distributed—only erases the brush strokes on a layer, but not the layer transparency. In order to effectively erase both the layer color and reveal any underlying imagery, an adjustment must be made.

Yesterday's All Things Painter webinar went well other than an unexpected glitch that caused me to temporarily go "off the air" for 3-4 minutes. Karen and I are going to do some troubleshooting to eliminate this issue from future webinars.

There were several questions asked during the Q&A session following the watercolor demonstration that we didn't have time to answer, so here are the Q's and the A's...

Q: Is it true that Painter 11 brushes can cause problems in Painter X, and if so, how can I tell which version your or any Painter brushes are?A: Yes, Painter 11 brushes can potentially be problematic when installed in earlier versions of Painter. This is due to new brush features in Painter 11. If a P11 brush utilizes one of these features (and not all P11 brushes do) and is then installed in Painter X, an error message results. My brushes come in 2 sets: Painter 11 and Painter X compatible. Other than brushes identified as such, there is no easy way to know what version of Painter they originated from.

Q: Sometimes when doing a collage or watercolor painting I like to sand off some paint to reveal whats underneath. Is there a way to get that look in Painter X?A: If you are working on a layer, the Eraser Tool can be used to erase both the layer's pixels and visibility mask. The effect is like "sanding off some pixels".

Q: Please ask John how he got that spattered watercolor background on his Painter desktop.A: I am on Mac OS X (Snow Leopard). I used a utility, SpaceSuit, to cover up my desktop during the webinar. Alternatively, any image can be used as the desktop background.

Q: Hi, if you print the image after it is done, which paper or method would you use?A: I have an Epson 7600 24" inkjet printer. I have been printing on Arches Infinity. However, Arches was purchased and Infinity is no longer available. I am currently researching potential replacements, which include Hahnemuhle, Epson, Breathing Color, and PremierArt.

Q: Why do you group before dropping layers?A: I was grouping, then collapsing layers. This combines multiple layers into a single layer. It is a technique for keeping an image's layer count low.

Q: What was the "convert to shape" message you got? I get it too and never understand what's going on.A: Sometimes Painter will save an image with a selection in a state that prompts the Convert to Shape message when opening the file. If you say No, the file will close. I routinely answer Yesand continue on. You may end up with an empty Shape layer, which you can delete.

Q: Will there be a a recording for those who missed it?A: Yes, I am editing it down and will post a link as soon as it is finished.

Q: I took this Webinar recently...but I have had zero luck installing the brushes...they end up in the correct folder but don't show up in the selector bar. What is wrong? A: Brush Categories—like John's Watercolors—are made up of a folder containing the brush files (John's Watercolors) and a same-named JPEG file (John's Watercolors.jpg). Both of these items must be in the user's Painter Brushes folder (not with the John's Watercolors JPEG inside the John's Watercolors folder, but at the same hierarchy level). Otherwise, you'll have the problem you describe.

About the Author

John Derry is a pioneer of digital painting and one of the original authors of Corel® Painter™. Since 1985, he has leveraged his background in drawing and painting to advance the look and experience of traditional art-making tools on the computer. John has a master’s degree in painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art, is a practicing artist and photographer, and has two U.S. patents relating to expressive digital mark-making. In 2010, Adobe designated John as a Photoshop Painting Pioneer. John teaches digital painting workshops internationally and holds a Photographic Craftsman degree from Professional Photographers of America. John is a lynda.com author specializing in digital painting titles.